


Burn (this whole world down)

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: M/M, Pyromania
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-14
Updated: 2008-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they're together they burn like fire. But like a flame, it's only a matter of time before they flicker out out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn (this whole world down)

Chester sits at the counter with a candle in front of him, passing his hand back and forth through the flame. This is how Mike finds him when he gets home from work. He sighs loudly, deliberately, and goes to grab the candle.

“If you put it out I’ll set fire to your clothes again,” Chester murmurs, distractedly.

Mike falters. Moves away.

“How was your last day?”

“Anti- climatic.” He says, taking a seat opposite Chester.

“I think you mean anti- _climactic_. Anti-climatic means you’re against the weather.” He pauses and glances up from the flame. “Sorry.”

“Did you take your pills?”

Chester nods, “Flush one, three times daily.”

Mike gets up from the stool and heads upstairs, calling back over his shoulder, “If you don’t take them you can’t stay here.”

They both know it’s a lie but still, it makes Chester’s blood run cold. He hates how much control Mike has over him. And all the promises of eternal love in the world don’t take away from the fact that their relationship is all about power.

He grabs a napkin from the roll beside him and tears it in two. Holds one piece over the open flame until it catches alight then drops it onto the counter. He watches it burn away to nothing before picking up the other half and doing the same thing.

That’s when Mike appears in the doorway, changed out of his expensive business suit and back into comfortable jeans and a T-shirt of Chester’s. He frowns briefly before shuffling over and blowing out the candle.

“Mike…”

Mike doesn’t say anything. He grabs the candle from the stand and throws it in the trash, brushing wax from his hands.

“You’re such a  _fucker_.”

“I quit my job today for you. The job I went to college for. And you’re calling me a fucker?”

Chester stares at him blankly. “Sorry to be such a terrible burden on you, Michael. But I never fucking  _asked_  you to quit.”

“You know I  _had_  to, Chester! I have to be here to – ”

“To what?” Chester laughs. “To look after me? Just fucking say it, Mike. Say you quit to be my fucking  _babysitter_.”

Mike stares defiantly, biting his lip.

The silence is louder than anything Chester has ever heard and he nods, staring at the floor “Yeah. Okay.” He hops off the stool and heads upstairs silently. Doesn’t slam the door either, once he reaches the bedroom, but he locks it after him and slides down to sit on the floor. And he cries.

***

Chester sits in the therapist’s office and glares at the ‘soothing’ waterfall piece of crap on the desk. Probably this is some environmental thing, the way people have plants because they fill the room with life. But Chester hates it. Partly because it makes him want to pee, but mostly because water is the one thing you can’t set fire to.

“Mike’s scared of me,” he says. They’ve been sitting in silence for at least ten minutes. He figures he might as well break the ice.

“Why is that?”

“He did some reading. Now he thinks I’m going to start sniping people from the bedroom window or some shit.”

“Why does he think that?”

“Because the Son of Sam, that serial killer, he was a pyromaniac when he was a kid. Apparently pyromaniac adolescents don’t grow out of it, they just grow into other stuff. Like rape.”

“Do  _you_  think you’ll end up like that?”

“No. But Mike does. And he’s convinced his friends the same. So everybody who steps foot in our house treads carefully. Like I’m going to stab them to death.”

“Do you ever have violent impulses?”

Of course he does. That’s where the fire starting comes from. The therapist already knows this. They’ve talked about this thousands of times before. So Chester says nothing.

“Do you ever think of hurting Mike? He told me that you’ve been rebellious lately, that you refuse to take your medication.”

“I don’t refuse. I just don’t want to take them.”

They’ve been over this, too. The medication is for the ADHD the doctors blame for his pyromania. They’re supposed to calm him down but they just make him even more bored. The ADHD, the pyromania, the inability to care about anybody but Mike and sometimes not even caring about  _him._  All of this means he can’t get a job.

He used to work; he used to go to school. But then he started stealing from the register and he set fire to the art department of his high school and was expelled.

His parents didn’t care if he went back to school or not. They didn’t care much about anything. It’s not that they were particularly bad parents they were just too young to run their own lives, let alone their child’s.

Chester isn’t sure why Mike keeps him around. The way they met wasn’t exactly romantic. Chester set fire to a dumpster behind his apartment building and Mike tried to put it out but got second degree burns to his hands and arms instead. So Chester drove him to the emergency room.

And somehow that constitutes as a first date.

And it’s been like that ever since – Chester fucking up and Mike getting hurt.

Some days he wants to just pack his things and leave. But being around Mike makes him  _burn_. And it’s fire that he needs.

So he stays.

***

When he gets home there are candles lit and scattered everywhere. The house is dark other than the tiny flickering tea-lights and Chester frowns. Mike appears after a minute and smiles, hesitantly.

“Is this a joke?” Chester asks.

Mike stares, “No. I thought I’d just…I dunno…I thought you’d like it.”

“You’ll burn the house down.” He says, and Mike just smiles.

“I talked to my doctor today. I told him I love you.”

Quietly Mike murmurs, “Why don’t you tell me that?”

“Why’d you light the candles? You’re scared of fire.”

And Mike shrugs, says, “I just don’t want to get burned is all.”

Chester doesn’t say, “getting burned is the best part,” but he doesn’t say, “I love you,” either.


End file.
